


Soiree

by breathedout



Series: Passchendaele ficlets [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Bohemianism, Breakups, Domesticity, F/F, Gals being pals, Parties, Successful cocktail engagements, engagements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22056610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breathedout/pseuds/breathedout
Summary: Halifax, Nova Scotia: May 22, 1907It was a perfect day.
Relationships: Emma Walsh/Annie Johnston, Other pairings
Series: Passchendaele ficlets [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1254113
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8
Collections: femslashficlets: janelle monae lyric prompt challenge





	Soiree

**Author's Note:**

> The folks over at [femslashficlets](https://femslashficlets.dreamwidth.org/) on Dreamwidth are hosting a year-long, 15-ficlet challenge where all the prompts are Janelle Monáe lyrics. I'm using them to create a little cycle of exercises using characters from the three established or hinted-at f/f pairings in the original novel I'm working on. So all of these tiny character studies will be related to one another, and all except three of them will be either Louise/Hazel, Rebecca/Katherine, or Emma/Maisie. Anyone interested in getting to know my characters a little bit as I flesh them out is welcome to follow along!
> 
> This story was written for the prompt "But I need to know if the world says it's time to go." Thanks, as always, to [greywash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greywash) for the speedy once-over!

The whole evening, Emma thought; the whole day: from waking to crisp linens and brilliant May sunshine, it had been— _lovely_ , really. Wholly lovely. _Easy_ in a way she never let herself believe—but for some reason, that day, she had. It felt almost _charmed_ : Halifax flush with springtime blossoms. No queues in the shops; and then the long easy afternoon, standing with Annie in their kitchen—shoulder to shoulder, since their flat had been provided with only a postage-stamp of a kitchen; but—today even that had been welcome. Their window had been open, and the sweet air had wafted in along their bare arms and their faces, and stirred Annie's yellow curtains, and together they had chopped boiled eggs and sliced ham for the hors d'oeuvres and something inside Emma's ribcage had expanded: warm, and fluttering, and full. 

And then Julie, waltzing in with wine; who had leant against their jamb and laughed her high-pitched girlish laugh and helped Emma off with her knotted apron-strings. And then Frank from the paper, and his wife Frances—whom Julie, it seemed, had met through her work on some event committee at the university. And so they were off; and Emma had been poised to smooth over any awkwardness Frank might feel to be divested of his wife and left alone, except that just then Michael and Duncan and a raft of other fellows from the paper popped in, swarming the kitchen until Annie lured them back out with promises of claret which Emma had got to pouring, as through the open door wafted voices of the arts-review people, chatting to Annie's friends from the secretarial school. 

With her tray full of drinks she pushed the door open to the sight of their main room _full_ of guests: a social hodge-podge who might easily have been at each other's throats but who, through some alchemical magic, had arrived at just the right times, in just the right order, to have—coalesced. Emma handed drinks around to Frank and his circle as they laughed loudly near the door; Annie caught her eye and smiled over someone's shoulder and Emma felt—radiant, didn't she. Bursting with light, and with goodwill: all the bright frocks and faces filling their little flat, which now seemed to—to breathe, almost; to _live_ , to pulse and hum in a way that made it unrecognisable to Emma, now touching Julie on the shoulder so that Julie, taking a fresh drink, grinned back. 

Why, Emma realised—there were even some Vale Road people. Not just Julie, and the few other Black faces the two of them knew from the financial district: there were also—well, Benjamin Nelson, there, the son of Annie's folks' neighbour; and standing next to him who else but Hank Charles, who'd spent most of primary school nursing a crush on Emma, and whom she hadn't seen in—

"Hank," she said, reaching out her hands to them. "Benny. It means so much you would come." Julie laughed again, close by her ear, and Hank and Benny shifted their beers—a little awkwardly—onto hers and Annie's side-table, so that they could each, in turn, clasp her hands in theirs. 

She felt—her _heart_ , she felt—like a girl again, almost, in her crisp white dress. And yet infinitely better, didn't she, for having grown up at last. Tucking a curl behind her ear she flirted harmlessly with Benny and he flirted back; and she wanted to be _generous_ with him, _giving_ of herself because he and Hank—who, she was learning, now owned a whole line of dry goods warehouses; whose suit was tailored in the latest fashion—had come into her home knowing it was hers and knowing it was Annie's, and knowing they'd made it together. There was such a warmth inside Emma, inside—inside _everyone_ , she felt—as Jack Thompson and half the rest of the junior reporting squad wheeled through the door just drunk enough to be charming. Emma laughed, sheer pleasure: ludicrous young Jack with his flamboyant pocket-squares and his bearing like a storybook pirate. Some of the shorthand girls were looking predatory and she might have warned them but tonight she thought: they will love each other. All of them. He will sweep them off their feet and they will dote on his wildness and the wildness of his lovers and—and the whole world, benevolent and interconnected… and grinning so hard her face hurt she beckoned him over so that he might charm Hank, and Benny; so that she might charm all of them; so they all might charm each other for hours upon whirling hours until Paul, the elder Thompson son, hat in hand, came around to collect his brother after everyone else had left. 

Annie shut the door behind them; Emma sighed. Slumped onto the divan, tired but still—full up with life. Annie came and stood in front of her and Emma sat forward to bury her face against Annie's belly; stroke her palms up the backs of Annie's thighs.

"I hope it's all right," Annie said. "Hank and Benny, I mean."

"Mmm," Emma said. "I loved that they came. How'd they hear?"

She didn't care, not really. Annie's fingers were in her hair and she thought: _It was a perfect day. A perfect day, with all these people who share our life; who came into our home. And we can have more days like this; more nights; there's no reason we can't have_ years—

"I invited them," Annie said, above her; then tugged, gently, at Emma's hair. Emma opened her eyes and looked up at Annie, blinking. 

"Or," Annie said, "I invited Hank." She took a breath. Her beautiful face, Emma thought. Her serious dark eyes. Her lovely mouth as her tongue came out to wet her lip and she said, her thumb on Emma's temple: "I hope you won't—well, he came because. Because he's asked me to marry him. And I said yes."

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out and/or apologies to Katherine Mansfield, whose short story "Bliss" suggested the basic concept of this story.


End file.
